Video - Panel One: Mother-Child Literacy and Intergenerational Learning

Margaret Spellings, Secretary of the United States Department of Education
Maria Diarra Keita, Founding Director, Institute for Popular Education, Mali
Florence Molefe, Facilitator, Family Literacy Project, South Africa
Perri Klass, MD, President and Medical Director, Reach Out and Read National Center, United States

SECRETARY SPELLINGS: Good morning. Thank you everyone. And thank you, Mrs. Bush, especially, for organizing this event and for bringing us together from all over the world. It's really thrilling to be here for this very important conference.

It's been my great privilege to know and work with Mrs. Bush for over ten years now, and to observe her lifelong commitment to others. She's traveled all over the world, and she's been a huge advocate especially for our children. Thank you, Mrs. Bush, for all you have done.

(Applause.)

As a former librarian, I know you feel right at home here, Mrs. Bush, as we all do. And so thank you for bringing us together.

I'm very honored to moderate this panel on the importance of mother child literacy and intergenerational learning. As the first mother of school age children to serve as the U.S. Secretary of Education, I know firsthand that parents are a child's first teacher. That's true in every culture and in every country.

Research shows that children with educated mothers are more likely to learn to read at a young age and to thrive in school. A mother who reads can introduce her child to the joy of words and the joy of learning very early.

Reading aloud to young children gives them a leg up for the rest of their lives, and makes them more likely to do well in school, and to pursue higher education. Mothers who read can also give their children a healthier start in life. Reading empowers parents to do simple, everyday things that many of us take for granted like reading the directions on a medicine bottle or following safety warnings.

As you know, nearly 800 million adults across the world cannot read, and more than two thirds of them are women. Many of these women are mothers who want their children to begin their life with opportunities and advantages that they never had, and that's why mother child literacy programs are so important. When we teach mothers to read, we not only empower them to take control of their own lives, but we also help them start their children on the road to better, more hopeful lives.

The panelists that you'll hear from today are leading successful mother child literacy programs all over the world. Maria Diarra Keita started the institute for popular education in Mali to help empower entire communities through spreading literacy and promoting intergenerational learning.

In South Africa, Florence Molefe has worked for the Family Literacy Project since 2000. The group helps parents develop their own literacy skills so that they can share the importance of reading with their children.

And here in the United States, Dr. Perri Klass, a pediatrician, serves as the president of the Reach Out and Read National Center. I just visited one of the group's centers in Pittsburgh last week and saw what a difference it's making there. Reach Out and Read helps doctors and nurses teach parents about the importance of reading aloud to their children.

It's now my honor to introduce our first speaker, who will be addressing us in French, Maria Diarra Keita.

(Applause.)

MS. DIARRA KEITA: (In French.)

MS. DIARRA KEITA: (Translated) who finally have moved towards the protection and the education of children, giving them the responsibility of their development in the local communities.

This program of intergenerational illiteracy has taken the name that refers to a proverb that says from Bambara's that says it is useless to raise your hands towards the sky to find what the feet have not planted on the earth. This metaphor illustrates the idea that the goal of literacy is to reach autonomy and concrete actions that can improve individual well being.

I would like to start with some words about Mali. Mali is one of the greatest countries of Africa with 13 million inhabitants, but the average rate of literacy is 81 percent and 88 percent for women.

The women, who represent 51 of the population, are marginalized in most of the decision taking (sic) spheres, especially in the political and economic fields. The lack of access to pertinent information maintains many of our communities in ignorance and dependency.

The program CANAGA (phonetic) started in 1991 with 20 groups of women in different Malian communities. For the development of the program, we have used diagnostic tools that have helped women to discover their own attitudes in relation to social change.

Their response to these tools have led to the creation of illiteracy models that are centered on human rights, health, and HIV/AIDS, and microfinance, and the leadership of women, especially in the direction of schools.

The way the CANAGA program functions is the information analysis action method, and this, in exchange, requires a development of reading competence, writing and calculation arithmetic, as well as communication and critical thought. Our literacy classes also in part mathematics courses by means of analysis of statistical data that have to deal with the realities of the people who learn.

Another part is the transcription of incidents, critical incidents in the life of the women, that gives motivation to be able to read the case studies and draw lessons for their life. Alphabet and syllables are learned by means of popular rhythms and songs that enables the students to follow the alphabetical order and proceed gradually to interesting combinations of all sorts of sounds.

As to the facilitators, they are recruited through leadership camps and they are trained in this methodology during 9 months. Ereka, one of the students, tells us that before this program a woman was not authorized to pronounce the name of the husband because that could cause the sudden death of her husband.

This popular taboo maintains a distance between the husband and the wife and reinforces the decision power of men. The women in the literacy class have decided that to write the name of the husband would eliminate this taboo, so literacy was recognized immediately as a means that could liberate women from the negative cultural taboos.

That what will come out of this program is that the 20 groups of women, once that they had literacy, all had given an absolute priority to the education of their children. The women have demanded unanimously, "Do for our children what you did for us."

And so was born an intergenerational model for learning for young people, with training models pertinent to the pre scholar education and the role of the students as future parents. The content included lessons on pedagogy, the growth and psychology of children, nutrition, vaccination and other parents' aptitudes.

These adolescents in turn became teachers in the community spaces for preschool education to respond to the growing demand of the communities for schools. Partnership was established with school authorities to open new teaching spaces for the children.

Nowadays, Institute for Popular Education works with 150 rural communities and teaches over 20,000 students of all ages at a very low rate of $2, American dollars, per day for 90 days of the initiation course. We have several witnesses of the way in which the CANAGA program has had a very positive impact on the schooling of girls and all the education chain during the whole life in the communities.

Fatumarta for instance, an adolescent who was a home aide has not only alphabetized but has knowledge of her human rights. She teaches for the last three years in a first year class and supports her mother with her salary. Her young sister and her brother are excellent in their respective classes. Her mother has also become literate, and, at the insistence of their two young children, the example of their family has given rise to an education dynamic for all within the community.

As we see, in this case, we have managed to get have enormous progress, but there is still a great deal to be done. I'm convinced that the quality of the strategy of the intergenerational literacy program CANAGA is the strength of our vision of strengthening the capacity of women that will lead us towards our objective, which is to have things happen rather than let them happen by themselves.

I sincerely thank you, UNESCO, (inaudible) from America, (inaudible) from the World Education and the Swiss Cooperation for their financial aid for the development of the CANAGA program.

I would also like to thank the ministry of the national division of Mali for the daring reform of its educational system, introducing national languages and the promotion of the community participation to carry out education for all.

Once more, thank you for this special opportunity, Mrs. Bush.

SECRETARY SPELLINGS: Thank you, Maria for (In French.)

MS. MOLEFE: (In French.) In 2000, my community picked me to be trained as a family literacy facilitator. I receive a lot of training and I am still starting by correspondence at the University of South Africa. I am pleased to say that last year I won the award as the best adult educator in the country, and our project has won many awards for our work.

In my particular part of the country, most of our homes are made of mud and straw. A few people have bricks home with tin roofs.

Our lives are difficult. Most people do not have jobs. Many families are affected by AIDS. Most of us do not have electricity or running water. Many of the women dropped out of school because of poverty or because the had to stay at home and look after (inaudible.)

We are not sure how many South Africans adults have difficulty reading and writing. We hear that between 7.4 million and 8.5 million adults are functionally illiterate. Between 2.9 million to 4.2 million people did not go to school.

A Family Literacy Project was started because people were worried that the young children did not have good any literacy skills. The way we work was to give a lot to encourage parents and children to read and write together at home.

In 2000, some of the women in my area started to attend the monthly meeting held by Family Literacy Project. Parents and grandparents joined the group because they wanted to find out how to provide a better life for their children. At this meeting, they learn how to help prepare their children to read.

Many of the women could not read or write, but the project helped them to find ways to help their children. For example, mothers were encouraged to talk to their children when they walked to the river to fetch water. When the children came home, they could sit and discuss where they had been. This is how they develop the skills of sequencing and recall, and learned new vocabulary.

From this experience, the women decided that they wanted to help learn how to read and write. Our structure program is teaching in units that cover issues that are relevant to the group such as HIV and AIDS, child protection, (inaudible), or how to best manage money.

Each teaching unit has six or seven sessions. In the first session of each unit, we use participatory tools so that the woman can help us what they know about the issue. These tools are diagrammed, mathematics, and metrics that we use to analyze the situation and make plans.

Everyone has a chance to discuss the issue before we give people new information. We want group members to know that we value what they already know. This method is based on a reflect approach.

If group members cannot read or write we ask them to practice shaping letters. Because the women discuss something they are interested, we call this the language experience approach. We take sentences from the discussion and break these into separate words, and the women put the sentences together again. They copy the sentence.

We give group members issues on how to talk to their young children about the issues they are discussing in the teaching units. This is how we support our children in their development while we are improving other literacy skills. We want parents to know to realize that they are their children's first teachers.

Another way we encourage people to write is in the small book we call Umzalinginan. This means "parent and child." We ask the parent to choose a picture from the magazine with their child. If they do not have any magazine, they can draw a picture. Then we ask them to discuss the picture with the child and write down what she says.

Our group members enjoy the group sessions so very much that they do not drop out of the group easily. The average length of attendance is three and a half years. If they miss a session for any reason, like having (inaudible) their house or repair a falling wall, they send an apology.

We believe that if people do not use their literacy skills, they will forget them, so we provide opportunities to practice reading and writing. Every person in my group writes to someone in another group. My group members also write letters that are printed in our monthly newsletter.

We reach families in many different ways. In addition to the Family Literacy, a group for adults, we also run group for primary school children. The children comes once a week to listen to a story and listen about topic like transport, wild animals, or how to cope with their difficulties in their lives. They draw, and write, and enjoy themselves. We make sentencization (phonetic) fun, so that they will learn how to read a book.

We work in seven communities and almost hundred women attend two two hour sessions a week. If a woman attends for one day, it costs us $228. We reach many more people doing it and the eight families we visit, the 240 children who attend our group, and the people who use our libraries.

If we look at how many people one woman reaches in her family and community, the cost drops to about $57 each year. All our facilitators are trained in adult literacy teaching and early literacy as well as the reflect approach.

When the project started we could not find easy to read books for parents and young children. The project developed skills that give information in a simple way. The books are written in Zulu and English. The illustration are all (inaudible) families.

The Family Literacy Project encourages mothers to read books. They are role models for their children to call. We run three community libraries for our group members, school children, and everyone in the area.

Even though our project is small, it has made an impact. The majority of our members have passed a level three examination, which means that they are now fully literate in their mother tongue.

Over the years, our group members have learned a lot about how parents help children to become literate and develop other skills. Three years ago we asked our group members if they would like to share this information with others.

Now each week they visit a family to read to the children, or do a puzzle, or play a game. The talk about what adults can do to help their children and also share important health information.

We know that the children in our area are benefiting from the project. They benefit because their parents are now role models. They sit and read together when they have finished their housework. They benefit because there are books in the area that they can borrow and enjoy. We think that a very important benefit is that they share our vision of making literacy a shared pleasure and a valuable skill.

(Foreign language.)

Let our families read together. Thank you.

SECRETARY SPELLINGS: Thank you, Florence. And now our final panelist, Dr. Perri Klass.

DR. KLASS: Mrs. Bush, distinguished guests, it's a great honor to speak in this remarkable, inspiring company on behalf of the role that healthcare providers can play in making literacy part of child health and part of every healthy childhood.

My name is Perri Klass. I am a pediatrician, and for more than 12 years, I have taken care of children in a city clinic.

Although the United States is an affluent country, we have many poor families in rural areas and in our cities, and often their children struggle in school. My patients are poor families, many young single mothers without much support, many new immigrants, many families trapped in poverty for generation after generation.

I am here to speak about the Reach Out and Read program, a literacy program based in healthcare which makes the promotion of early literacy part of standard healthcare for young children. I'm going to tell you what that program means for children all over the United States, but first, for the children in my clinic.

Each of you who has ever taken a child to a baby doctor knows most of what I do with my patients. I give shots. I weigh babies. I measure their heads. I look in their ears. I check diaper rashes.

Through Reach Out and Read, I also give advice about books and reading to parents. And starting when each of my patients is six months old, I give them books. Every child from six months to five years gets a beautiful new picture book from me at every check up.

That's Reach Out and Read. First, doctors, nurses, healthcare workers are trained to give parents developmentally appropriate advice about reading to young children. Parents need to know that babies like pictures of babies and babies put books in their mouths or that two year olds may not sit still for the whole book. We tell parents to point to the pictures and name them.

Second, with that advice goes a book, a sturdy board book for that baby; a book with colorful pictures of animals for that two year old. And third, in the waiting room, we provide information about libraries and adult and family literacy opportunities, and, when we can, literacy volunteers in the waiting room to read to the children.

There's a young, very uncertain mother with twin sons that I've been taking care of. And starting at their six month visit, I would give each boy a book.

When the boys were two, this mother told me that back before her children were born, she had never thought about how expensive it would be to provide for two babies at once. Now she worried every single day, she said, about food, and clothing. And, she said, "I would never even have thought for a minute about buying books. There is never a dollar to spare. But those books they got here at the clinic," she said, "they love those books."

And she found out that if she sat on the floor and started to turn the pages, both boys would come, sit down with her, sit on her lap, and those were the calmest, happiest moments that she had all day. It was her favorite time with them, she said. And because of what I told her when I gave her the books, she knew was helping them learn and making it more likely that they would do well in school one day.

Over the years, I have given out hundreds, thousands of books, and through my work with the Reach Out and Read program all over the United States, I feel I've had a part in giving millions. And I think of those books as bright bits of color in the homes of these children whose lives may sometimes be difficult, and barren, and dark.

Children who start school without language and early literacy skills are at great risk. They are likely to go all through school reading below grade level, probably failing in school. They fail. They drop out. They're more likely to get pregnant too early or get in trouble with the law. They are likely to perpetuate cycles of poverty and dependency.

So those first five years of a child's life are crucial. If we want to help children succeed and break those cycles, we have to help their mothers build their skills in those early years so that they arrive at school ready to learn to read.

Reach Out and Read takes advantage of the relationship between families and child health providers to deliver the message about reading and deliver the books. For many parents, this is a new message: reading to children too young to speak; increasing a child's chances of school success by what you do at home; the idea that even a parent who is not herself a skillful reader can name the pictures for her baby and build language skills, and link the book to the joy that a young child takes in the mother's voice.

Reach Out and Read started 17 years ago in one hospital serving poor families in Boston. This year, more than 2.7 million children nationally participated in Reach Out and Read, receiving over 4.5 million books. And Mrs. Bush has supported all this expansion of Reach Out and Read as part of her commitment to helping children grow up ready to learn.

Reach Out and Read is efficient because we use the medical infrastructure: hospitals, doctor's offices, neighborhood health centers, public health clinics, even mobile vans. And this network exists in some form in every country to deliver immunizations and healthcare to young children and essential health and safety advice to their parents.

Reach Out and Read is inexpensive because we partner with publishers to buy books in bulk. Our average cost per book is $2.75, $27.50 per child for ten books over five years.

And Reach Out and Read is effective. Research published in the medical literature over the last 15 years has consistently shown that with the Reach Out and Read model parents read to their children more frequently, report more positive attitudes towards books and reading; the home environment is richer in literacy materials and activities; and most important, children's language improves. By the age of two

(Break in Tape)

DR. KLASS: providers, and then the books themselves act as an incentive. Families are more likely to come see the doctor because the child will get a book.

It works because we're actually giving mothers the tools that they need in order to follow the advice, and because following the advice is actually fun for the parent and the child, unlike much of the other good advice that doctor's give. It works because even a very young child will quickly understand that by asking to be read to with gestures, by handing you the book, she's really asking for her mother's attention, her mother's voice, her mother's time. And it works because when mothers look at books with young children, they increase their children's language exposure and the stimulation during those critical early years of brain development.

Reach Out and Read has grown and expanded dramatically in the United States, but we are still only reaching 25 percent of the children living in or near poverty, and our aspiration in this country is to continue to expand until we reach all the children at risk.

Reach Out and Read can happen in any country, any setting where healthcare is provided to young children, but it's very important to understand each country's healthcare system, how it works, and how to integrate books.

We are changing children's healthcare and expanding the definition of a healthy child. As a pediatrician and as a mother, I would like to see this expanded definition of a healthy childhood applied to children in every country. To grow up healthy means to grow up with a home that stimulates your growing brain, with exposure to spoken language and written language, with books and reading, so that every child arrives at school ready to learn, and succeed, and read with a healthy body and a healthy brain.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

SECRETARY SPELLINGS: Thank you. Thank you, Perri. Thanks to all our panelists for their very inspiring stories. From Maria Keita from Mali, we learned how the CANAGA program has fostered the deep transformation within communities, liberating women from oppression of illiteracy and building in them the desire to see their children thrive. From South Africa, Mrs. Molefe has shown us how parents become role models for their children when they learn to read and write, and that families engaging in conversation and reading together build vocabulary and reading skills. And finally, from Dr. Class, from our own country, she reminds us that it is incumbent on all of us to break the cycle of poverty and dependence and reinforce the importance of a mother's attention to literacy and learning by building critical literacy skills in the early years of a child's life.

Our call to action going forward from today must be to take these examples that we've learned and find ways to identify, and expand, and replicate these programs to spread literacy and opportunity in our communities. Parents all over the world want their children to have a better life, and we must work together to give them that chance.

Thank you very much for your attention today.